He had been handling the leaves of the book with his fingertips only, anxious he might smudge or rip the pages. Now he abandoned all caution and flipped roughly through the remainder of the volume. Until he came to the end, and his hand froze.

There they were, the two of them. He and she, fully clothed and unengaged in any physical intimacies—yet intimate, in a way he had never known. Never dreamed. Sitting beneath a willow tree, his head in her lap. One of her hands lay twined with his, atop his chest. The other rested on his brow. The sky soared vast and expansive above, gauzy clouds spinning into forever.

The hot fist of desire that had gripped his loins loosened, moved upward through his torso, churning the contents of his gut along the way. Then it clutched at his heart and squeezed until it hurt. Somehow, this illustration was the most dismaying of all. So naïve, so ridiculous. At least the bawdy situations were plausible, if sometimes physically improbable. This was utterly impossible. To her, he’d never been more than a fantasy. It occurred to Gray that more secrets might be packed within these trunks. If he sorted through her belongings, he might find the answers to all his questions. Perhaps answers to questions he’d never thought to ask. In spite of this, he let the lid of the trunk clap shut and fastened the strap with shaking fingers. He’d suffered as many of her fantasies as he could bear for one day.

It was time to acquaint her with reality.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Reality was hitting Sophia hard. Or rather, kicking her hard, and leaving bruises the size and shape of a goat’s cloven hoof. Reality was making her ache all over, in muscles she hadn’t known she possessed. Her first day as ship’s cook had been novel, amusing. She’d experienced the thrill of competency and earning her own keep. Each fire built, each potato peeled, each squirt of milk into the pail was a small triumph. Just a few days later, she was fully prepared to admit defeat. Manual labor was not romantic in the least, and only dimly satisfying, in the way chewing rock-hard ship’s biscuit satisfied one’s hunger—begrudgingly, and at considerable expense of effort.

Once she assumed control of her inheritance, she intended to never boil water or tend a goat again. With a bit of prudence, her trust ought to keep her in servants for the remainder of her days. For the remainder of this voyage, however, she would toil or go hungry. And if there was one thing Sophia suspected would suit her less than a life of menial servitude, it was hunger.

The work suited Gray, though. He’d slipped into the role of Kestrel’s captain faster than he’d filled out a borrowed tunic and trousers. Authority was simply comfortable to him, like a second skin.

Despite all that had passed between them, despite his anger and hurt—at some deeper stratum of his being, he was more content than she’d ever seen him. He was pleased to be in command, to be on deck working rather than sitting idly below, and Sophia was pleased to see him where he belonged, living as he was meant to live.

Because she loved him, so much it hurt. She wanted him to be happy, whether or not that meant being with her. And if she never laid eyes on him again after they dropped anchor, she would carry this picture of him forever: Gray prowling the deck of the Kestrel, all confidence and energy and charisma, coordinating the movement of the sails and rigging as instinctively as he manipulated the fingers on his hand. As for herself, the current picture was one she would endeavor to forget.

Toting a pail of hard-earned milk, she shouldered open the door to the storeroom to gather biscuit and salt-beef for the evening meal. Weak light spilled into the barrel-crammed space. She stomped hard on the floorboards: once, twice, three times. Then she counted ten and tried to ignore the sounds of rats scattering into the shadows. Heavens, if her mother could see her now. There weren’t enough restoratives in Bath and Brighton combined to counteract the attack of nerves this scene would doubtless inspire.

When the sounds of scratching faded, she entered the storeroom and turned to rest the milk pail on a waist-high crate.

A hand clapped on her shoulder.

Milk sloshed over the side of the pail, dousing her hand and splattering her skirts. A startled cry whooshed out of her as an arm whipped around her waist. Her back collided with a wall of heat and muscle.

“Is this what you wanted?” The rough whisper warmed her ear.

“Gray.” She nearly fainted with relief. He held her tight against him with one arm, his other hand skimming over the curve of her hip. “Gray, what on earth are you doing? You made me spill the milk, drat you.”

“It won’t go to waste.” Resting his chin on her shoulder, he untangled her fingers from the pail’s handle. Bending her arm at the elbow, he lifted her fingers to his mouth, sucking them clean one by one. His tongue traced each finger and the delicate webs between them, sending gooseflesh rippling down the backs of her legs.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” His fingers interlaced with hers, squeezing them until they hurt. “Your dream lover, lurking in the shadows of the stables, the larder … the storeroom? Lying in wait for his wanton dairymaid?”

Sophia froze. Dear God, he’d seen The Book. He nipped at the curve of her neck, and she gasped. “You—” She swallowed hard. “You had no right to look through that.”

“You had no right to put me in it.” She could hear the raw edge of anger in his voice. His fingers still gripping hers, he pressed her own hand to her breast. “But let’s not dwell on rights, sweet. Not when wrongs are so much more interesting.”

His hand flexed, digging her own fingers into the flesh of her breast. She felt the soft globe heating in her palm, the nipple firming to a tight knot.

“Gray.” She tried for a reproving tone, squirming in his vise-like grip. His arm tightened about her waist, pulling her backside flush with his hips. The hard ridge of his arousal pulsed against the small of her back, hot and demanding. Her feeble attempts at resistance melted. Hadn’t she been waiting days for just this? Longing for him to reach for her, take her in his arms? Yearning for the feeling of his strength surrounding her once more?

Gentle or bruising—the precise manner of the gesture mattered little. What mattered was him. His warmth … his touch … his mouth …

“Did you think of me, as you lay in your bunk at night?” His hand kept kneading her fingers around her breast, chafing her palm against the aching peak. “Did you imagine these coarse hands pawing your body?” He dragged her hand to her other breast, groping impatiently. His lips traced the ridge of her ear, drew on the sensitive lobe with hot, wet suction. The nape of her neck prickled with excitement. Arousal washed through her, sweeping over the surface of her body and rushing together at the apex of her thighs. She closed her eyes and saw red waves of sensation pulse through her with each flick of his tongue against her ear. Then his teeth closed down hard in a sharp burst of yellow. She gave a little cry, half pleasure and half pain.

“Did you ache for me here?” He pulled her hand down, thrusting it between her legs. Through the layers of shift and skirt, he ground her palm against her mound. She rocked against it, moaning a little. “You did, didn’t you?” His index finger pressed hers into the soft folds of her sex. “Didn’t you?” Another nip at her ear punctuated the question.

“Yes.” Her breath dragged in and out of her, the air tasting dark and musky.

“Did you imagine me coming to you, in that berth at night? As you went about your day? Bending you over some obliging surface and hiking your skirts to your waist?” He untangled her hand from her skirts and pinned it to the crate before her, holding it immobile with the weight of his own. The splintery wood bit into her palm. He released her waist, and with his other hand he grasped a fold of her skirts, expertly drawing them up and up. She hadn’t worn stockings or drawers since they entered the tropics, and the brush of fabric against the bare hollows of her knees sent pleasure shivering through her.

Leaning forward, he bent her at the waist and parted her legs with his thigh. Cool air licked over her inner thighs as he worked his trousers loose, and then his hard length sprang up to wedge snugly in her cleft. He rocked forward, rubbing slowly along the moist, swollen folds of her sex, drawing out the contact in one sweet, torturous, endless caress. She cried out with relief when the tip of him finally grazed that most sensitive bit of her flesh. With his free hand, he swept her skirts up and away from her legs.

“Look,” he demanded, nudging her forward so her chin bent to her chest.

“Look.”

She obeyed, looking down to where the ruddy, swollen head of his arousal peeked out from her thatch of tight curls. The sight of their bodies locked together excited her beyond reason.

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To look at it, touch it, feel it grinding against you. To satisfy all those schoolgirl curiosities about a man’s body and how it fits with yours. To live out all the depraved little fantasies in that book of yours. This is what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?” He pulled back, dragging his hard shaft through her softness until Sophia shuddered with pleasure. He thrust forward again. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she gasped softly. Then louder, “Yes.”

Something like a groan escaped him. “Well,” he breathed against her ear,

“I happen to have a few depraved fantasies of my own.”

The words hummed in her ear, sending electric jolts of arousal straight to her core. She whispered, “Tell me.”

Gray’s heart thumped wildly in his chest, each beat matched by a pulse in his groin. Damn, but she was so hot, so wet. He dragged against her again, the friction of their bodies producing a liquid sound that was unspeakably erotic.

He’d meant to stop this here. Or, truthfully, a little ways back. He intended to make her admit that all she’d wanted from him was pleasure, a chance to explore her wanton fantasies. And then he’d planned to walk away, to tell her to find some other man to deceive and discard.

But he’d forgotten how she felt so good. How she felt so right.

“Tell me,” she repeated, her voice husky. When he still hesitated, she added, “Show me.”

And he found refusal was no longer within his power. This was what she wanted, he told himself. She wanted to explore passion and pleasure. Why should he deny her, deny himself?

He released her hand where it lay splayed on the crate. She remained in place, leaning forward at the waist. He settled both hands on her hips, lifting her up and firmly against him, and then he slid his hands up her ribcage, counting one slender rib for every narrow stripe of that damned button-less, hook-less, lacing-free, impenetrable muslin frock.

“My fantasies,” he said hoarsely, hooking his index fingers under the neckline at the midpoint of her back, “start here.”

He gripped the fabric and rent it to her waist in one swift motion. The striped muslin fell away, revealing her stays and a gauzy chemise beneath. He had her laces undone in the space of a breath. Ripping the chemise was the work of an instant, and then her back was exposed to him, elegant planes and graceful ridges and smooth, creamy skin. He ran his fingers over that silky expanse, watching her flesh quiver beneath his touch.

“And they continue here,” he said, sliding his hands beneath the torn edges of the frock and around her ribcage. Easing her loosened stays aside, he took her bared breasts into his hands. Her breath was a sharp hiss as the soft, warm mounds filled his palms. He groped hungrily, thumbing her hard nipples as he nuzzled the curve of her neck. She worked back and forth against him, stroking her moist, inviting heat over his aching erection. “And then?”

He pinched her nipples, rolling them between his thumbs and forefingers. She shivered as he swept his tongue over her neck and down between her shoulder blades. Oh, she tasted so good, both salty and sweet. “Then you moan my name.”

“Gray.” The word was a throaty plea. His loins answered with a throb.